Anyone holding onto the quaint notion that our elected representative govern in the interests of the community will see how false that is when they look at energy policy in Australia.

AUSTRALIA IS CURRENTLY in the middle of a coal rush. Coupled with the exploration of coal seam gas expanding at a rapid rate across Queensland and New South Wales, this looks (on paper) to be one of the country's biggest and most rapid industry expansions in our short history.

Australia is currently the world's largest exporter of metallurgical coal and ranks sixth in exports of thermal coal. In 2012, we sold around $60 billion worth of coal, mostly to Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.

Looking to the future, Australia's national energy policy, the Energy White Paper, anticipates strong demand from these nations for Australian coal and prioritises coal production as a core element of energy for the coming decades.

Around 30 new coal mines and coal mine expansions are planned for New South Wales and Queensland, and if they proceed would more than double Australia's current coal exports of more than 300 million tonnes per annum.

Much of the current expansion of coal is predicated on rising demand from China, and India; a stable global economic environment; and industry denial about climate science.

These assumptions have shaky foundations and investors should heed the clear warning from risk experts of the imminent destruction of value of high-carbon investments and that climate change will continue to deliver systemic shocks to regional and global economies.

China is reportedly looking to cap energy production from coal and indicated that coal consumption will peak during the next five year plan. These announcements suggest the Australian coal industry's expectation of an ongoing boom is inflated by wishful thinking.

Closer to home, research from the Australia Institute suggests the expansion of coal exports is adversely affecting the national economy - its growth occurs at the expense of other industries. It suggests cutting coal production would lead to a net economic benefit, with growth made possible in other sectors such as manufacturing, tourism and education.

And regardless of where it's burnt, Australia's coal represents a huge contribution to global emissions. Proposed coal exports would lead to an additional 700 million tonnes of CO2 emissions, and would place Australia (just the Galilee Basin in Qld alone) at a ranking of seventh largest contributor in the world to global CO2 emissions arising from the burning of fossil fuels. For a nation that likes to pretend we contribute only 1.5 per cent to global emissions, that's quite a jump in our contribution.

What does it mean for our climate commitments? The International Energy Agency World Energy Outlook 2012 (pdf) was quite clear about the prospects for limiting damages and reversing climate change associated with global warming from burning fossil fuels. Quite simply, if the world wishes to limit warming to less than two degrees (a level that is considered the absolute maximum in order to prevent escalating and irreversible warming trends), we cannot even exploit existing fossil fuel reserves, much less liberate even more.

The expansion of coal and coal seam gas (given the high emissions signature of CSG from emissions during extraction) would completely negate many times over any gains that are made from emissions reductions achieved through Australia's carbon price.

There is also serious harm to human health associated with the coal rush. The burning of coal for electricity is associated with the compromised health of thousands of people living in proximity to these plants. The mining and transportation of coal also carries serious health risks from coal dust and toxic pollutants released during extraction and rail transport to ports.

But who is looking out for the community in terms of protecting health and wellbeing? For those who still hold the quaint notion that elected parliamentary representatives might be interested in achieving the best outcomes for the community, it's disappointing news.

State governments appear willing to approve projects despite serious community opposition because of the revenue they provide in mining royalties. Climate risk is severely underestimated in the Australian Government's Energy White Paper, and Premiers Newman and O'Farrell also appear oblivious to the climate implications of their respective coal booms.

Even the health professionals have been missing in action, with communities such as those in Maules Creek in NSW and adjacent to a fourth coal export terminal in Newcastle forced to undertake or organise their own health impact assessments from proposed coal projects. Supported by volunteer groups such as Doctors for the Environment, community groups are researching health impacts, setting up air quality monitoring, and collecting baseline health data.

Last week however signaled a shift in the involvement of the health and medical community in Australia. Health leaders met at a national Roundtable in Canberra last week and resolved to engage more directly with energy policy in this country, to see that the local and global implications of the coal rush are highlighted in terms of the impact on health.

Speaking to the Roundtable of around 40 health care leaders, Professor Colin Butler from the School of Public Health at Canberra University said: "Australia's reliance on the export of coal is no more justifiable than profiting from slavery or the supply of cocaine. Of course, energy is vital, including in Asia, but a clever country would develop energy technologies that can wean civilisation from its highly dangerous reliance on 19th century technology."

A statement (pdf) from the Roundtable participants said: "The risks to human health from energy and resources policy are not being well accounted for in current policy decisions. Significant policy reform is needed to ensure health and wellbeing is not compromised by policy decisions in other sectors. Recognising the importance of the social and environmental determinants of health is an important part of that."

Clearly, relying on the weight of evidence in relation to climate and human health is insufficient to lead to effective, safe, equitable policy. Many of us who participated in the meeting in Canberra last week believe civil society leaders such as health professionals and health sector executives have a responsibility to help develop policy in every sector that protects and promotes health. This involves getting a better understanding of health risks associated with energy and climate policy - and making sure the community is aware of these risks as they prepare to vote for a new national government. Because right now, energy policy is possibly our greatest threat to health on the planet.

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Comments (76)

Pete0762 :

25 Feb 2013 10:21:33am

The issues and problems are much mor fundamental and directly related to our current insane and truly unsustainable economic system, which promotes growth at any costs and of course would collapse otherwise. With this and giving economic and political power to the few (elites or empire as some call it) and counting any economic activity as good (even war) and externalising everything else, it leads us into the shit we are in now (including all the greed, deception, delusion, collusion, corrpution, nepotism etc). Unless we completely replace our economic and related social and political systems to what we really need (and want), any environmental and other policies are going to fail sooner or later. And that will have to include radical decline in overall consumption and yes we will have to live simpler lives - there will not be much choice about it, but does not mean at all that lives would be worse, in contrary, would be a good idea to get away from the illusions and delusions of our lives anyway. A switch in the economy and energy supplies? Yes but much different from what is advocated by most pundits - everyone driving a hybrid is not going to work - we will run out of lots of other resources first before that is going to happen, not to mention will it be unaffordable. So get rid of the empire and get real life for real communities!

Gary C :

25 Feb 2013 10:01:32am

2 things. 1. Science and research will tilt their findings towards who will pay the bills. 2.The elephant in the room is human population numbers. Say it once say it a thousand times, the growth of the population is the driver for land clearning for homes and crops and the increasing requirement for energy generating polution in the air and waterways. This world will not survive the continued population growth, research that.

Lisa Meredith :

28 Feb 2013 9:23:45am

Dear GARY C,

“1. Science and research will tilt their findings towards who will pay the bills.”

The scientists responsible for the greenhouse effect theory and the carbon isotope analysis technology (which measures the rise in atmospheric CO2 and determines its source) are physicists, and the main bulk of their work is independent of climatology. Given that physics is the main driver of modern technology – from your smoke detector to your computer – I suspect that their funding would continue with or without AGW.

Also: the climate will change and economic losses may result with or without AGW – so there is no guarantee the climate science will lose its funding if AGW is shown to be completely incorrect.

“2.The elephant in the room is human population numbers.”

So: how do we approach this problem? Do we:-- Enforce a one child per women rule?- Ban religion?- Educate all women and give them access to contraception, such that they have control over their own lives and bodies? This might involve emancipating women worldwide.

I agree we need this discussion, but there is always room to solve a problem by approaching it from different angles and implementing various solutions at the same time. This might mean addressing population growth and removing practices that damage the environment concurrently.

laurence2 :

21 Feb 2013 9:06:47am

Can someone explain the numbers? This article suggests that 300 million tonnes of extra coal produces 700 million tonnes of CO2. As burning one tonne of carbon produces 3.67 tonnes of CO2, the implication is that the exported coal contains only 63% carbon. Is it really such poor quality?

Anyway, even at 700 million tonnes, if we applied the carbon tax to existing exports, it would raise $20.3 billion per annum. Why not apply the carbon tax to all carbon dug up in Australia, rather than just the fraction that is burnt by politically targeted Australians.

jusme :

21 Feb 2013 12:34:27am

another good thing about reducing our coal use is that it'll last longer, until better battery storage is invented, we may need a coal station here and there to backup renewables. the earth could probably 'soak' up 1/10th of what we burn.we should also focus on transport, it's just as bad as energy production and after that, livestock i believe is quite a contributor. so electric cars and kangaroo meat mmmmm.china has the right idea, use other countries reserves 1st. one day when ours run out, if we don't switch to renewables, we'll have to buy off them. i wonder how much we'll have to pay...

pinkmini :

20 Feb 2013 7:07:04pm

I can't even believe we are talking about that 2-centuries old fuel, Coal. I truly hoped it was a thing of the past, like Fracking will be (real soon I hope). Teenagers I know have no hope for the future They cannot see a world where pollution, animal extinctions, seas rising will not happen. They certainly don't want to bring any kids into this depressing nightmare. I'm 62 and glad I won't be here. I do my bit, but many many people just don't. End of story. (end of world?).

AnnabelFlower :

26 Feb 2013 6:29:05pm

Sorry PinkMini, you may not be that lucky, you could live until your are 85, it may happen a whole lot sooner than we think (14 years), you are not off the hook yet. Google global warmings terrify new math , an article in Rolling Stone from July 19 2012 by Bill Mckibben.

On the other hand solar thermal technology could save the day.

see : http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-02-11/report-boosts-solar-thermal-hopes/4511940

Bill Anderson :

20 Feb 2013 5:37:15pm

If all Australian transport and industry used gas, and the hydro-elecric industry was left to supply the rest, then Australian emmisions would drop to about 40% of their present levels. Unfortunately the left wing nuts are against these 2 industries as well. This "all or nothing approach"has led to twice as many whales being slaughtered this year as last year. It also leads to the alienation of all those in the middle. If they compromised a bit they would gain a lot.

crank :

21 Feb 2013 2:02:34pm

We need to totally decarbonise, as fast as possible. Emissions reductions of 60% (by when?) are useless. That's the problem with 'Rightwing nuts'- they either do not know what they are talking about, or are being deliberately disingenuous.

Bill Anderson :

20 Feb 2013 5:31:19pm

The Australia Institute is paid for by left wing organisations. It has been critical of the Australian federal government's perceived lack of action on climate change. it has campaigned strongly against developing a nuclear industry in Australia. It claims that the resources sector drives government energy policy. In other words it is a political tool and just like the tools of the extreme right wing cannot be trusted when it comes to so-called research. It is biased opinion, plain and simple

danger_is_not_the_solution :

25 Feb 2013 4:38:07pm

Australian science contradicts the validity of the Australian government's actions. Basic fact contradicts the validity of the Australian government's actions.

It is patently absurd for anyone to claim that coal is intelligent, viable, clean or ethical. We can see, measure and prove that by being the world's largest coal exporter, Australians contribute, per capital, more to global warming than any other humans on the planet. This is not opinion, this is not "left wing", this is observed, provable fact.

Science is not left wing, it's what it is. If you want to disagree with the science, fine, but prove it with measure data, and for the love of all that is sane, why bother with this pitiful branding of intelligent, verifiable, measurable fact with a political alignment? Venus is not heated by "left wing", it is heated by carbon monoxide. As is our planet.

Leave the political alignment OUT of fact, science and research, it has nothing whatsoever to do with it. If you want to attack the facts, fine, do it intelligently and on the merits of the facts.

As for nuclear - great solution.. except it's not. Nuclear is safer, sure.. but perhaps you should be asking why not a single nuclear reactor on the planet is actually insured? The answer is: the liability is too high to pay for. Insurance companies are driven by the probability of cash flow, and if they won't pay for the cost, then obviously, the probability of catastrophe is not low enough. You can argue with the actuaries if you like, I'm sure you won't, most of them will show you how wrong you are, and you'll label their numbers as "left wing".

PPP :

TheyHaveToGo :

20 Feb 2013 3:11:18pm

In WA The Premier,Colin Barnett, and his ministers- Redman,Marmion and Grylls have openly declared that they are happy to see our potable water robbed from farmers and healthy environments.They are happy to send our entire Ord 2 water to China as cotton.They are happy to allow miners to de-water ancient aquifers to suppress dust,wash minerals and machinery and to grow a low end crop like hay. And they call it ecological sustainable.What has taken millions of years to accumulate is taking years to exhaust(read,waste) .On top of this all of these men want more growth,more mining,more water extraction.And the irony is they all claim to have rural interests at heart.All of them (not sure about Redman,but he DOES live in Perth metro area) live in the most luxurious suburb in Perth.

Redman and Grylls claim to be rural advocates.Ha.

Today Colin Barnett claimed he could manage Tasmania's economy better.There is only one way he could do that.By duplicating (accelerating) the WA model of forest destruction,environmental degradation and parasitic deals with mining and energy.He has as good as admitted what the community is saying.He is not of the people,he is for the big end of town.Even the EPA watchdog has turned out to be severely ethically inept and verging on corrupt.The WA opposition could do worse than start a Royal Commission into the Barnett govts business transactions, if elected.

A real visionary leader would have set up a manufacturing base where the iron ore and gas is located, and every power station (until clean energy was phased in.) in WA, every household and the entire transport system would be run by WA gas.This WA experiment has been a complete failure,not unlike Gillards circus.

Bulldust :

Stephen Allen :

20 Feb 2013 2:23:59pm

Are mining royalties really worth the cost of a burnt planet. Here in NSW when mineral prices are high, royalties are around 6 percent of total state revenue, all other times royalties are around 2-3% of total revenue.

floss :

20 Feb 2013 2:46:54am

The greater threat to health occurs for those who live in an environment where the pollution is at higher levels. As it was in London in the Industrial Revolution, so it is now in Beijing. Wherever we have manufacturing, we have a problem with emissions if control mechanisms are not put in place.

In the interests of deriving profits many Australian businesses have sent their manufacturing processes offshore, mainly to China. We do supply coal to provide energy for this, but China has decided to utilize the resources of other countries and conserve part of its own vast energy resources. The Chinese tend to think in longer time frames than we do, perhaps because they are a very old civilization.

The fossil fuels we are using now were once the life forms that inhabited this planet in the greatest numbers. Given our proliferation across the earth, we are probably going to become the fossil fuels of the future, maybe in a couple of million years or so. How might this happen?

A meteorite impact? Possible, because we only seem to identify many objects from space just before, or after, impact.

Starvation? Crops may fail as a result of flood or drought, but more likely because of soil degradation where land has been cleared to allow people to occupy more space. And where there are crowds of people disease is more readily transmitted.

Especially when many are huddled together for warmth when the climate is cold and there is no fuel to heat their shelter. Then condensation runs down the walls and mould grows, causing further health problems.

The manufacture of renewable energy generating devices is energy intensive. The manufacture of the components of this technology we use to communicate with is energy intensive. We obtain nearly all of these devices from overseas, contributing to the pollution that the citizens of those countries live in. We have effectively exported our own pollution costs of living. Yet this has been done by mutual agreement. The technology most commonly used to build solar panels in China was developed in Australia, and we pay to import them now.

So how should we modify our behavior? Stop using the devices that our society revolves around? Used mostly for entertainment purposes. Or stop imposing our own climate control in homes, offices and factories? After all, these are luxuries that 50 years ago nobody had, or needed. All most families had was a fireplace, often with a briquette heater installed, in the lounge room. Briquettes were manufactured from coal. And if the family had a car then it was considered wealthy.

I am glad that we have the resources and technology to build the equipment used in modern medicine. I am glad that we have a reliable source of electricity to power it. And I am glad we have health professionals who only utilize these resources when necessary for the healing of a patient.

Bulldust :

19 Feb 2013 4:19:03pm

How does proposing to capture and sequester CO2 from coal-fired power stations equate to "denial of climate science?" This doesn't even make logical sense, let alone scientific.

Secondly, it should be realised that what the central government of China announces as a thought bubble and what the largely autonomous provinces do are often two drastically different things. I would suggest that their ambition to cap coal use is strictly that, an ambition. Perhaps they have learned about non-core promises from us decadent westerners.

Thirdly your analysis or CO2 emissions attributable to Australia is woeful at best. Why is Australia emitting CO2 in the first place? It isn't for the sake of emitting CO2, I can assure you of that. Much of the energy ends up in energy-intensive manufactured goods (e.g. aluminium) which are then mostly consumed overseas. So who should we attribute the emissions to? Methinks the final consumer is perhaps the root of all your air-based fertiliser emission ills.

I can't say I forced myself to read to the end of the OP's piece... when it is so rife with logical fallacies and disingenuous commentary, it is clear this is an advocacy puff piece rather than serious science.

Bulldust :

20 Feb 2013 11:41:03am

Dangit! Can't trust the internets when it says many projects have been sequestering CO2 for years and years. It's all lies obviously. Those liars on the net say the Sleipner field off Norway has been doing it since 1996, Salah in Algeria since 2004 etc... Maybe Australia just isn't as technologically advanced as those clever Algerians...

So assuming you agree with the OP that we should be accountable for exported coal emissions, and we should also be accountable for domestic emissions, you don't see how this leads to bogus double counting?

Not sure why I blog at the ABC to be honest ... ideology & advocacy are immiscible with logic, so I doubt my arguments find fertile soil here.

Damnthematrix :

21 Feb 2013 9:16:43am

Sources? probably is all lies......

CO2 is THREE TIMES the atomic mass of Carbon. It takes up way more room than the original fuel, and I'd like to know what great big holes they can fill up to muster this magic........ I've seen calculations that show CO2 comes out of power stations so fast, it would go out a six foot diameter pipe at 150km/hr......

So flow rate for 1000 MW through 1 m pipe = 0.45 metres/per secondwhich is 16km/hr...... and that's LIQUID CO2.If it is as gas, you have to know the temperature and pressure. The higher the temperature, the faster it has to go. And it would be a lot faster than the above...

Bulldust :

22 Feb 2013 12:32:27pm

I have no problem with those calculations, but you omitted the coal consumption rate of 114.2kg/sec (3.6Mtpa) which results in 11.15 cubic metres of CO2 (liquid state) per year. These are large numbers, but simply dwarfed by the sizes of resevoirs in the petroleum industry.*

I doubt anyone is suggesting all coal-fired power stations will have 100% of CO2 generated sequestered ... just that it is one of a potential basket of solutions in the intermediate term, until better ways to generate power become mainstream.

Contrary to what Greens and the likes of BZE would like to have the public believe, you simply can't wean an advanced economy off coal in a matter of a decade without massive disruption to economic activity. in a longer term perspective? Who knows? These are long term decisions, but at least sequestration is one nearish term potential solution to decrease CO2 emissions from the established infrastructure.

* We use approximately 3.5 billion cubic metres of oil a year. Enough storage capacity for over 300 1GW coal power stations as you have described. Not suggesting this is to be used for sequestration, just for comparative scale purposes.

Magpie :

20 Feb 2013 8:13:59am

1. Carbon capture and storage doesn't work, and there's no indication that it will ever work. Reducing the amount of coal you burn, however, does work right now.

2. If the Politburo orders that no more coal-fired power stations be built, then it happens. I'm not sure where you got the idea that they rule with anything less than absolute power (mitigated only by corruption lower down), but you've been misinformed. "Largely automomous provices" gave me a good chuckle, though.

3. Who cares *why* we emit? We emit. Lots. We need to emit less. Plans to emit *more* are not helpful to the objective of emitting less. Even carbon capture that you seem to think is a good idea is all about reducing emissions - doesn't that mean that you and / or the coal council want to emit less? Well, seeing as carbon capture presently captures zero CO2, maybe we should at the very least NOT vastly expand our digging-up of carbon...? Maybe?

4. Fertiliser??? You know it's trivially easy to test what effect increased atmoshperic CO2 has on plant growth, don't you? And that it HAS been tested? And that it's been shown to have bugger-all effect - for some species it's actually limiting to growth? You know that, right?

Bulldust :

21 Feb 2013 2:36:23pm

1) See point above.2) I state this because of knowledge gained from talking to people who operate in China. You honestly think the whole economy is controlled exclusively from Beijing? I can tell you that my sources say otherwise, but you don't have to believe me. 3) I don't think CO2 sequestration is a good idea, unless you think arbitrarily wasting one third to a half of your coal resource reburying the by-products (i.e. the CO2) is a good idea. Just saying it is possible, demonstrated, but only economically feasible with very high CO2 emission penalties. No one would do it for the heck of it.4) I shall make a note to all greenhouse horticulturalists to stop wasting money injecting CO2 into their greenhouses in the vain hope of higher crop yields.

Steven :

19 Feb 2013 3:40:48pm

Unfortunately with respect to metallurgical coal, there is no viable alternative. You can mitigate CO2 emissions with wind generators, solar cellls etc however to actually make steel and most industrial metals, you need metallurgical coal. Indirectly even aluminium is made from coal as the energy requirment for aluminium could nver come from solar or wind power.

The only possible alternative is using nuclear power to generate hydrogen and undertaking hydrogen reduction although the scale to do this would be enormous and hydrogen is a extremely dangerous reductant.

So you must balance the life conditions of the many with a first world economy and infrastructure with that of a stone age society. It would be hard to argue that the person today does not haves a far better life regardless of the problems, that that of his non-technological ancestor

SP :

David Arthur :

25 Feb 2013 11:13:20pm

... or all the French aluminium smelters next door to nuclear power plants?

Ideally, there'd be a Cape York nuclear power station, an alumina refinery and an aluminium smelter. Australia would be exporting aluminium instead of alumina, worth an extra $16 billion per year, with all the additional jobs in Australia.

Likewise, there'd be a nuclear power plant at Port Hedland, powering a direct reduction iron smelter. If Australia exported iron and steel instead of iron ore and pellets, there'd be ~$130 billion extra in revenue. If that happened, the coal industry (~$50 billion in export revenue per year) could be shut down no worries.

Where would all the smelter workers come from? Well, Australia's dole queues would be shorter, and there'd even be work for all the redundant coal miners.

Damnthematrix :

Bulldust :

20 Feb 2013 11:50:14am

As someone who studied minerals engineering as an undergrad, let me say met coal is not so much needed, as the cheapest alternative. Separating oxygen from haematite or magnetite ores to deliver pig iron can be done in a number of ways... met coal just happens to be an efficient and cheap way to do it. DRI processes can use natural gas as the reductant so you don't really need coal.

blixen :

Can't you see that any attempt to redirect the coal rush to more environmentally friendly energy sources is just a great big con by you communist inspired greenies to usher in a new world order.

We want jobs and bucket loads of cash now and to hell with the future. And if the new coal mines make a few very rich, including the Obeids and other mates, so be it, at least our politicians can claim they are creating jobs. So vote for me next time, blokes and you can have these wonderful fly-in fly-out jobs to the mines.

Anyway, bugger these greenies who just want to be party poopers!

And these ones that get sick from all the pollution and so on are probably just wimps anyways!

Are you expecting us to believe these scientists with their stories of global warming - they are just wankers that have gone to uni and think they know everything. And also they are just so corrupt, joining the global warming bandwagon just to get funds, probably siphoning a bit off into a good lifestyle, if you ask me!

Robin :

Jacob :

19 Feb 2013 2:31:17pm

The hypocrisy is breathtaking and proves that the carbon tax is only really about spin, about seeming to be doing something.

Fact is that government projections rely on expanding coal exports and the atmosphere does not care where it is burnt. You rightly point out that this expansion dwarfs any reductions achieved by the carbon tax.

Yet any criticism of the carbon tax was howled down by the green zealots. Criticism was not permitted.

And soon there will be no carbon tax, as Tony (climate-change-is-bullshit) Abbott looks set to gain power.

Bulldust :

20 Feb 2013 11:53:33am

Other problems with the tax include:

1) Linkage to foreign markets in the future - over the last month CO2 permits in the EU system were trading under 3 euros a tonne.

2) Doesn't matter what Australia does. If we stopped all emissions today, China would have made up for the deficit in a matter of 3-4 months due to their growing emissions. Australian direct emissions are trivial on a global scale. Therefore the CO2 tax was never about making an impact on climate, it was all about raising revenue for the Fed coffers.

crank :

20 Feb 2013 12:29:48pm

It's not a tax. Would that it were, set at a carefully calibrated and increasing rate, with all proceeds hypothecated to renewable energy research, development and installation, compensation for all but the rich and ecological repair. No, it's a carbon trading scheme, a sop to the 'Market God' hence certain, like the European disaster, to be a rorted fiasco, as climate stability rapidly disappears.

David Arthur :

25 Feb 2013 11:19:38pm

If they were serious about cutting emissions, then they'd simply put a consumption tax on fossil fuel, and increase the rate of this tax each year until they've achieved the required emissions reductions ... and use all the money raised by this new tax to give people tax cuts and benefit increases so they can buy solar cells and wind generators and stuff.

So why are they so mad keen to use their Clean Energy Futures package as a back-door to an emission trading scheme (to be in place by 2015)? As far as bankers and traders are concerned, emission trading is a brilliant idea - transform the entire economy into tradeable derivatives - and some people still think this is about emissions reduction. What a hoot!

rayx2 :

19 Feb 2013 2:23:50pm

Very interesting article Fiona,with 50% of the population on board and the rest having to be dragged kicking and screaming to that realisation.While a believer in climate change, electricity pricing was the main motivator for change i,e consumption.After introspection,well hypocrite was my answer, not a very good self-image of oneself. Happy to profit from the sale of fossil fuels but aghast at the damage there causing.Look forward to more articles that question my beliefs and the motivators for them.

Kamala Emanuel :

19 Feb 2013 1:12:02pm

Anyone who's interested in an energy policy that considers climate and health impacts should look at the Socialist Alliance's climate charter here http://www.socialist-alliance.org/page.php?page=674. Key point: we can't rely on government or business to do it for us but have to organise grass-roots pressure for change - as to their credit so many people are trying to do. Still, it'd be a help to have people willing to take up the fight for a safe climate into parliament.

Patricia McAuliffe :

19 Feb 2013 1:00:04pm

Please keep the debate public ABC. An excellent article. These fossil fuel corporations appear to have more money than governments. Their continual advertising about their importance to our economy is lulling many, including our elected representatives, into a dangerously false sense of security.

Pete the gibberer :

SP :

19 Feb 2013 5:58:02pm

And the ethics of condemning them thru destruction of the environment, thru global climate change? What use is a fridge if there is no food to put in it?

When do we stop considering China a developing nation. At what point does it become "developed". How does Chinas current "development" status compare to the development status of the developed countries of the 1970s?

Peter of Melbourne :

20 Feb 2013 7:53:26am

We have no moral responsibility to look after the mass of humanity outside of our borders. Hell we should be deporting all the country shoppers who have rorted the system over the past few years and are now draining our limited resources.

The so called developing countries have not a single damn chance of developing since the vast majority of them refuse to dump their pathetic bronze age and iron age cultures.

crank :

20 Feb 2013 12:33:54pm

Oh, that humbug! The sudden tender concern that causes the Right, never known before in human history to give a stuff whether the poor lived or died, to suddenly commence crying tears (of joy) at the prospect of using poverty as a phony denialist argument against decarbonisation.

Bulldust :

David Arthur :

25 Feb 2013 11:22:35pm

Cheap energy source? Not when you factor in the loss of farmland due to rising sea levels and climate disruption (droughts, floods), not when you factor in shifting disease distribution patterns and collapsing fisheries.

GraemeF :

19 Feb 2013 12:06:55pm

It doesn't matter how many facts and figures you use, the gibbering loonies of the right wing climate change denialist faction will come out howling about world wide left wing conspiracies.Trying to counter their ranting with the wise words of professionals from many fields will be a waste of time because they simply refuse to learn the truth and are happy to wallow in their own studied and practiced ignorance.

Bulldust :

20 Feb 2013 11:59:36am

By "professional" you mean professional advocates, right? After all, the OP's own web site mentions advocacy twice in her description of herself. From my experience I usually find advocates and scientists rarely speak the same language ... one is concerned about the search for truth, and the other is concerned about swaying political opinion. The latter does not usually employ large amounts of the former, in fact the truth usually gets in the way of a good advocacy story, as I have demonstrated a few times on this thread (assuming the ABC mods let the comments through).

Harquebus :

19 Feb 2013 11:57:34am

Population reduction is the only thing we can do and as Sir David Attenborough recently stated, if we don't do it, nature will do it for us. Less people using less resources is what is required and is not what economists and politicians want.I think that we will reduce our populations but, it won't be voluntary. The squabbling over energy resources has already begun.

tom :

19 Feb 2013 3:35:41pm

Agree Harqubus.

I might add that when renewables do finally take hold, will there not be a massive population explosion? The industrial revolution led to a rapid increase in humans because we were able harness a cheap and abundant resource ie fossil fuel. A green revolution will likely trigger a similar population increase which will only amplify the already negative effects of a warming climate on our health.

Harquebus :

20 Feb 2013 10:03:28am

Sanitation, modern medicine and modern agriculture have grown our populations. It used to be that a mother, on average, would have two surviving children.Modern agriculture is the process of turning fossil fuel into food. From seed to plate, the whole distribution system relies on oil.Renewables are manufactured using the energy from fossil fuel and will never be able to replicate themselves. That would require them to provide more energy than was used to create them.

Bulldust :

20 Feb 2013 12:10:51pm

Unlikely Tom. Scientific advances and the improved lifestyles that come with it lead to reduction in fertility rates. This is partly why most people are projecting global population to peak around the 9-10 billion mark. When people live longer and healthier lives there is less incentive to have a lot of kids. There are other reasons, but every country follows a similar progression. China was an odd exception because of the enforced reduction (one child policy).

The other problem with most renewables is their low energy density - i.e. it takes a lot of equipment covering a large land/sea mass to generate the output of a small traditional power plant. I don't know how adequately the environmental impact of these large renewables plants has been measured, but I imagine there are some down sides.

Ultimately one would hope that a tech like fusion is developed to solve the energy "problem." IMO a fusion plant would be highly preferable to a landscape covered in windmills or solar panels. Geothermal has more appeal, but hot rocks geothermal is also a long way off on any useful scale.

crank :

20 Feb 2013 12:42:33pm

The answer to over-population is economic justice and equality. Almost always the demographic transition to smaller families only occurs when poverty is greatly reduced. Unfortunately the Right are fanatically opposed to equality and to smaller populations and steady-state economics. So, instead of economic justice, we are going to get a Malthusian solution, imposed by the Right, to do away with billions of what the global elites call 'useless eaters'.

Every disaster prognosticator has been proven wrong for the same reasons ... their models were overly simplistic and their assumptions of continual exponential growth did not match the eventual reality. CAGW proponents are no different, but I won't derail here.

Fact is that disaster prognosticators capture the ignorant* public eye and media headlines ... no one is interested in the common sense, business-as-usual reality we actually live in. Fantasy is more fun than reality.

Bulldust :

22 Feb 2013 12:43:34pm

I should add that to an economist with half a clue, "Peak" anything is irrelevant, that is what market price signals are for. Which is why the Productivity Commission made it quite clear to the Labor Government that a market solution to CO2 emissions should never be accompanied by other market distorting subsidies and/or taxes. Needless to say, the Labor Government completely ignored that sage advice...

el-viejo :

19 Feb 2013 4:09:34pm

"Population reduction (...) if we don't do it, nature will do it for us."

Never a truer word spoken. The nature will take its course regardless of what we do or refrain from doing. There is no point in incessant worrying and self-flagellation. Nature will intervene, and we will be spared the awkward moral choices on who lives and who dies. There is no discrimination in the nature between the innocent and the guilty. The technologically advanced nations will adapt and survive. As to the rest, there is not and there will never be any realistic capacity for uproooting and relocating billions of people out of harms way, and no automatic obligation on anyone to do so.

So now can we please stop having these guilt trips.

PS. As to the non-human beings, I will weep after the mountain gorillas and the forest elephants with exactly the same intensity I weep after the dodo and the stegosaurus every day.

Billy Bob Hall :

Taswegian :

19 Feb 2013 11:20:36am

It's great to see the momentum building behind a discussion in the mainstream of the ethics of fossil fuel profiteering.The national moves to get universities and super funds to divest their fossil fuel investments (or at least offer fossil free options), even the maules creek protest which got some attention to what is a major problem, these are all good steps.I hope we can avoid the worst of the warming and its impacts on climate.

crank :

20 Feb 2013 1:01:12pm

Unfortunately, Taswegian, your hope is in vain. Some time between now and 2020, the Arctic summer sea ice will disappear entirely (and a few decades later, so will the winter sea ice). When that 'albedo flip' from reflective ice to heat-absorbing dark seas will cause the absorption of as much heat per annum as all anthropogenic greenhouse emissions. The temperature rises in the northern hemisphere will be 'amplified' and that will lead to huge quantities of methane being released from submarine clathrates and permafrost-the dreaded 'methane bomb'. Of course methane is vastly worse as a greenhouse gas than CO2. Climate destabilisation runs away then, and nothing humanity can do, even total, immediate, decarbonisation, if it were possible, would make no difference. Somewhere along the way, with a decade or so, the climatic derangement leading to droughts, deluges, mega-fires etc, will destroy much agricultural output. Then comes famine, disease, mass migration, war and, inevitably, thermo-nuclear war. Already, in the midst of the first stages of this disaster, the West's absolute priority is not global co-operation, but increasingly hysterical denunciations of China and preparation for war, 'to bring China down', as Huntsman the former US Ambassador to China blurted out during a Republican Presidential candidate debate. We've not only passed tipping-points, but several points of no return. I haven't even mentioned ocean acidification, an even greater calamity.

Kakadu :

19 Feb 2013 4:56:52pm

Good article. I'm glad medical practioners are getting organised on this. Another drawback of the mineral wealth is that much of it is owned by foreign companies who can put pressure on politicians. So foreign companies and governments have a role in making decisions. I'm afraid the final outcome is hardly ever based what the Australian population want or what is good for them and the next generation.

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